James Suckling Most Recent Comments: See Also: Day 3: From Table to AshPosted: 02:04 PM ET, February 27, 2008 Sometimes I find it almost hard to believe that the cigars we buy in shops come from the rollers’ tables of cigar factories in Havana. When we buy the cigar, it’s almost as if we are standing right next to the roller and he or she is handing us the cigar. Look at the video below with Eric Aboulia, whose family owns Raffi Cigars in Geneva, Switzerland. We were together in the H. Upmann factory in Havana yesterday and he saw a friend of his rolling, walked over, and received a fresh smoke. How cool is that?
I, too, have friends in the cigar world in Havana, and one was nice enough to give me a sneak preview of the Cuba's new Edición Limitadas that are coming out later this year: the Cuaba Piramides, Partagas Serie D No. 5 and Montecristo Sublimes. I smoked them together yesterday.
Here are my impressions of each of the cigars, with my non-blind scores:
SPECIAL PREVIEW TASTING: CUBA'S 2008 EDICION LIMITADAS
Cuaba Piramides
6 1/8 by 52 ring
This is the same size as the popular Montecristo No. 2. It is super refined and long with light coffee and nutty character. Full flavored with a long finish. Gorgeous and fresh. All is in balance. Perfect draw.
93 points (non blind)
Montecristo Sublimes
6 1/2 by 54 ring
The strongest of the three, it shows lots of espresso bean, roasted meat and earth under the tobacco. Read more
Day 2: Hola H. UpmannPosted: 03:00 PM ET, February 26, 2008 I just got back from visiting the H. Upmann factory in Nuevo Vedado with some friends from Geneva, Switzerland. The main hermano was Arek Aboulian, whose family owns Raffi Cigars. The twenty-something spent three months working in Upmann a short while ago, and he knows just about everyone in the factory. I will blog about him later.
Anyway, the new H. Upmann Magnum 50 certainly smoked well in the factory. It was such a cool idea to be smoking the cigar where it was originally made. Look at the video.
As I have already written, the Magnum 50 is one of two cigars that is being pushed this year at the festival. The other is the Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure Especial. Both were featured last night during the Welcome Cocktail Party at the Club Havana. A multi-media show and dance production – sort of Broadway meets Havana and cigars – preceded the party at the Karl Marx Theater. Habanos S.A., the global distribution and marketing company, gave out the two cigars to the participants. I thought it made better sense to smoke them the next day.
And the Magnum 50 smokes wonderfully. It is a big smoke in size but delivers very refined and balanced flavors that verge on floral and cedar. It is very typical for Upmann, not powerful but smooth and fresh. 92 points. I will smoke the new Epicure Especial later today.
I visited all the departments at the Upmann factory this morning and I was impressed with what I saw – the one exception was the wrapper. It looked a little marked and unclean. This must be because they didn’t have a very good harvest last year due to extremely dry weather. But one of the quality control people at the factory said that they were selecting good wrapper, nonetheless. Read more
Day 1: Morning View from La HabanaPosted: 04:04 PM ET, February 25, 2008 I woke up this morning in Havana in my hotel, the Melia Cohiba, and after a quick café con leche in the bar, I walked out onto the Malecon boulevard that skirts the sea in front of the city, and breathed the fresh sea air with a mixture of diesel and other smells of a bustling city.
There’s a special feeling when you are standing on the Malecon and first looking at the sea towards the United States and then back at the old buildings on the boulevard. It is like a lifeline to the city with most of the major traffic of Havana taking it to cross from one end to the other. There’s an energy, a vitality that is hard to describe.
It’s these indescribable sensations that bring so many people to Havana. This year is shaping up to be one of the best in ten years in tourism. I spoke to the manager of my hotel and he said that they had 96 percent occupancy at the moment and they expected it to continue for the next few months. Cuba and Havana seem to be back on the radar screen for visitors from Europe, Canada and Mexico – the main areas that tourists come from.
A large number of tourists at the moment are here for the Festival del Habano, the 10th annual cigar event for the city. I have already seen cigar smokers and merchants from Europe, North America, the Middle and Far East. In other words, they are here from all over the world and they are smoking up a storm.
After my video making on the Malecon, I went back to the bar on the 20th floor of the Melia Cohiba and it was full of cigar smokers. They had the window of the bar open and it was only about 9 am. There were too many people smoking cigars!
I ran into a friend from Lebanon who had a couple examples of the new regional cigar for the area – a Ramon Allones Sublimes. Read more
Peace and Love for CubaPosted: 10:53 AM ET, February 19, 2008 The news last night about Fidel Castro retiring from political duties in Cuba does not come as a surprise. The word on the streets of Havana has been nothing else but that for months. In fact, his brother Raúl has been in real power since Fidel passed the baton to him in July 2006. Everyone knows that.
I am excited for everyone -- Cubans as well as Americans. I can only pray that there will finally be some sort of discourse between our two nations. At the end of the day, we are the same. We are part of the world. And we are close neighbors. I have seldom met a Cuban that doesn’t love America. Honestly, I wish it were the same in the United States. It’s time to reach out.
There is talk in Cuba about Raúl’s ideas on changing economic policies as well as social and political programs. Everyone will have to wait and see. Raúl is going to say some important things at the end of the week during the Congress of the National Assembly.
Just about anything is possible, but it will be on Cuba’s own terms. That I know.
I keep thinking today about my five-hour meeting with Fidel Castro in February 1994. I was with editor and publisher Marvin Shanken and we interviewed the icon. I also took some amazing photos of the man smelling a Cohiba Esplendido. He didn’t smoke at the time but he was in heaven smelling the cigar. Every news organization in the world wanted a copy of the photo.
Anyway, Fidel said something that comes to mind at the moment. In fact, it was the end of the interview, and it still haunts me.
Marvin Shanken: "The American press repeatedly refers to the very poor conditions here in Cuba. Read more
Day 10: Goodbye CubaPosted: 12:40 PM ET, February 15, 2008 It was a cool trip to Cuba. I am back at home in Italy at the moment and posting my last video blog from the island. And I am sorry I left. There is so much to see and learn there, especially for a cigar smoker.
I hope you have enjoyed the blogging and got as much out of it as I did. As I mentioned in my first blog, the go-to cigar for many in the world is now the Partagas Serie D No. 4. The red-banded robusto is now the cigar many smoke on a daily basis. It even outnumbers the Montecristo Petit Corona in such large markets as France as the No. 1 smoke. Don’t be surprised if you see it being sold in tubes in a very short while!
In my second blog, a trip to the La Casa del Habano cigar shop at Conde Villanueva hotel in Old Havana near the Plaza San Francisco showed how prices on the island have finally come down slightly after years of being too high. It now makes financial sense to buy cigars on the island. For example, the wonderful Bolivar Gold Medals are selling for just over $54 for a box of 10 cigars and the same box may cost three times as much in other markets. Moreover, the Upmann Magnum and Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure lines were expanded with two new additions -- Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure Especial and H. Upmann Magnum 50, respectively.
It never hurts, as my third blog noted, to stop into the El Floridita bar for a quick daiquiri and smoke. I only wish Ernest Hemingway still haunted the joint. How cool would it be hang with the late great writer? Shame he didn’t smoke cigars.
What a welcome from the tobacco grower/guru Alejandro Robaina. Read more
Day 9: Everyone's Lunch In HavanaPosted: 01:59 PM ET, February 13, 2008 Like I didn’t have enough heavy food already after lunch with tobacco maestro Alejandro Robania. But the day after my visit to his plantation, I went to lunch with some friends at a big outdoor restaurant called El Palenque in the Siboney neighborhood of Havana. This is the closest thing to a popular restaurant, considering lots of locals hang here. It’s super cheap where a Cuban sandwich can cost a couple bucks and an ice-cold beer about half that. I have been coming here for 10 years.
The cuisine is rustic and homey with lots of pork. Check out the split suckling pigs on the open grill in the video. They were not cooking this in my honor. It’s grilling away everyday for lunch and dinner. I have the crunchy skin on the plate in the video, which we ate as an appetizer with a couple of frosty Buccanero brews. Yummy.
I have eaten my weight in lechon with the Padrón family in Esteli, Nicaragua. Dave Savona is an aficionado of the stuff as well. But José Orlando Padrón, the partriarch of the great cigar company, is all too right when he says that “no place makes better lechon than Cuba.” Look at the video again my friends.
The main course was perfectly cooked juicy pork with black beans, rice and a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbage. My mouth is watering now as I write this. Forget the three-star Michelin restaurants. This is the real deal.
We lit up some Cohiba Lanceros half way through the meal. I don’t normally like to smoke and eat, but I thought why not be decadent with my buddies. And it’s nice to be able to smoke just about wherever you wish in Cuba! I am so tired of the anti-smoking laws!! But I don’t have to tell you that.
I didn’t have a lighter, so the waiter offered to lend me his. Read more
Day 8: Barns of DreamsPosted: 11:39 AM ET, February 13, 2008 Just to give you an idea of what the tobacco looks like going in the barns, check out this latest video. It’s awesome. Hiroshi Robaina, the grandson of tobacco guru Alejandro Robaina, took me for a walk through their three tobacco curing barns and I was speechless. Unbelievable quality.
Hiroshi said that this year they weren’t using any artificial curing barns because the weather was so perfect for naturally drying the leaves. Last year, they had to use almost all artificial curing because it was too hot and too dry. I am not a great fan of artificially cured tobacco. I think it cooks some of the quality out of the leaf.
But last week there was perfect warmth and the humidity was just right to cure the tobacco naturally. The only adjustments made in the barns were a little bit of chopped up moist tobacco on the floor of the barns to assure good humidity and opening and closing the barn windows and doors to regulate the temperature and freshness in the building.
The 32-year-old Hiroshi said that it takes about 10 days to have the leaves turn from green to yellow brown. Then it takes another 50 to 60 days for the tobacco to completely dry. They do a short fermentation in their barns afterwards before shipping the tobacco to close-by warehouses in San Luis, where the tobacco is sorted according to texture, size and strength and fermented another time.
Fingers crossed. Can’t wait to see the end results later this year! I still remember lots of optimistic harvests that ended with the tobacco being improperly processed. Hope it doesn’t happen this year! We need some fabulous wrappers on Cuban cigars!!
Day 7: Comparing Apples to Oranges?Posted: 02:14 PM ET, February 12, 2008 It wasn’t the first time that I smoked a “foreign cigar” with Alejandro Robaina, the great tobacco grower from Cuba’s Pinar del Río region. Alejandro is a curious man for 89-year-old and he’s always interested to try cigars from other areas in the world. He wants to know what the competition is like outside of Cuba with cigars. As proud as he is of his tobacco and Cuban cigars in general, he also admits that good cigars can come from other countries, whether Nicaragua or the Dominican Republic.
I brought him a Padrón Serie 1926 No. 9, none other than Cigar Aficionado’s Cigar of the Year, but with a maduro wrapper. Honestly, I smoked a number of the cigars out of the box and I was not as excited by them as the lighter wrapper that I smoked when we rated our top smokes last year. But it was still interesting smoking them with Cubans. In fact, I was worried coming in to Cuba with a box of these cigars. Customs didn’t say anything after x-raying my bags. They must have thought they were Cuban. Who with a sane mind would bring Nicaraguan cigars to smoke in Cuba?
You can tell from the video that Alejandro liked the Padrón. He thought they looked great and the packaging from the white and gold bands to the wooden box were fabulous. He said that the cigar was perfectly constructed and drew like a dream. He loved the fact that the cigar was box pressed. “I haven’t seen cigars in Cuba like this in years,” he said with a big smile. “Most cigars used to be like this before the revolution.”
However, I am not sure he was all that excited by the character of the smoke. He said that it lacked a bit of flavor and remained slightly earthy, like most Nicaraguan cigars. Read more
Day 6: Robaina's New WrapperPosted: 10:17 AM ET, February 11, 2008 The tobacco in Robaina's fields looked so good last week. It was bright green, large sized, clean, and ripe. Hiroshi Robaina, 32, the grandson of the legendary tobacco grower Alejandro Romania, said that it was the best tobacco the family had seen in their fields in the last 15 years. Check out the video.
Granted, I have heard such hyperbole before, especially from Alejandro. I don’t think he is a bullshiter. He is just excited about his crop. And last year’s apparently was not very good for him or anyone else in Pinar del Río. So he was very keen about this year’s harvest. The 2006/2007 growing season was just too hot to grow tobacco properly. So the crop, particularly wrapper, was very short. Only God knows what that means for cigar production this year or next. Getting a straight answer on the subject from Habanos S.A., the global distribution and marketing company, is almost impossible. Sometimes it’s almost easier talking to a paint-peeling wall in Old Havana.
This year’s tobacco crop should make up for the 2006/2007 shortfalls, assuming the good weather holds out. It’s been near-perfect for the entire growing season since the bad rains in October and November. But the rains were worse in the center of the island, where floods were prevalent. The wet weather in Pinar simply delayed some of the planting. The Robainas expected to finish their harvest in the next two weeks. Yields should be at record levels.
I was amazed how beautiful the new hybrid tobacco looked in their fields. Capero No. 1 was first planted on a large scale last year, and the Robainas, and other growers, are very happy with the results. Look for yourself at the video. The leaves on the top of the plant look as large as Conneticut leaf. Unbelievable. Although the Robainas planted some Corojo 99, about four-fifths of the plantation is in Capero No. Read more
Day 5: Smoking FumasPosted: 01:28 PM ET, February 08, 2008 Most tobacco farmers in Cuba’s Pinar del Rio, the best tobacco region on the island, have their own fumas. They are the cigars that they make from their own tobacco. You can call it their “home reserve” or “riserva de familia.” They keep a small amount of the tobacco they are growing for the state and make cigars for themselves, family and friends.
I have not had many from other growers but I can tell you that the Robaina family makes amazing fumas. They may be some of the best cigars on the island. I guess in a way they are “fake” cigars because they have not been officially made in a factory, or carry a label of a well-known brand. Pero no importa! (I am making a joke!)
Check out my video. And see what I mean.
Normally, I like to smoke the Robaina's robusto. I love the powerful yet balanced character of the smoke, which has just enough spice, coffee character in the aroma and palate. It is sort of a supercharged Hoyo de Monterrey Epicure No. 2. 93 points. (Speaking of which, you may notice soon that the Epicure No. 2 comes with double bands – one saying Hoyo and the other Epicure.)
The tiny amount of cigars the Robainas make are not for sale. They are given to family and friends who visit their finca, or farm. The tobacco in the filler is about four years old and the wrapper is about two years. This is much better aged tobacco that most cigars are made from the key factories in Havana. I am not saying they are necessarily better because the tobacco blenders of the key export factories are magicians with what they have. But the Robaina cigars certainly have class, finesse and character. It’s all about aging the tobacco.
I noticed that Alejandro, the grandfather of the clan, has come up with a new size for his family smokes – the Godfather or “padrino. Read more
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